Education & Fellowships

Research Interests

Diseases & Conditions Treated

Chickenpox

Shingles

Associations/Memberships

American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

Publications

Link to PubMed (Opens new window. Close the PubMed window to return to this page.)

Research Abstract

Most people in the U.S. have had chicken pox, caused by the varicella zoster virus (VZV), or have received the vaccine. This virus remains latent in the body for life, and can reactivate as the disease called shingles. Learning how VZV interacts with human cells is the major goal of our research, and we hope to use this knowledge to develop new drug treatments and to improve the vaccine.

Current work in my lab is focused on the cell functions that are required for VZV replication. Specifically, we are looking at how VZV dysregulates cell cycle proteins, what effects VZV has on cellular DNA synthesis, and how VZV impacts cell-signaling kinase cascades. To study these aspects of virology and cell biology, we have used chemical inhibitors of cellular kinases to understand what enzymes are needed for VZV to grow. We found that a cell cycle kinase inhibitor, roscovitine, is highly potent against VZV replication, viral gene transcription, and protein expression. Other compounds that target the cell are being studied for their antiviral properties.

Other tools that we use to study VZV are virus mutants, a mouse model of virus replication, and skin organ culture. Using human skin, either grown in culture or implanted into SCID mice, we have identified genes that are necessary for this virus to replicate in skin. Since chicken pox and shingles are infamous for itchy, painful skin lesions, this is a very important system for studying VZV. Creating mutant viruses to study in the skin model has been slow, but molecular techniques exist, and new ones are being developed, to analyze the contribution of individual VZV genes to pathogenesis.